ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

The Pathetic State of Dashboards

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 August 2012

Over the last several months, my colleague VP and Research Director Tony Cosentino and I have been assessing vendors and products in the business intelligence market as part of our upcoming Value Index. Tony recently wrote about the swirling world of business analytics, covering many of the dynamics of this industry. He and I have been reviewing the breadth and depth of over 15 of these vendors...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Dashboards, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Management, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Expert Systems

Stibo Is Red Hot for Product Information Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 13 August 2012

When it comes to managing product information, organizations know they have room for improvement; only 27 percent trust their efforts completely, and less than a fifth (19%) are very satisfied with them. Almost half (48%) say they have too many incompatible tools, while 41 percent do not have a centralized information repository and 45 percent use a manual process to create a single complete,...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, MDM, PIM, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Management (IM), Product Information Management

Anaplan is on a Mission for Planning Driven Performance Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 August 2012

When it comes to the task of managing performance, many organizations still find themselves fixated on the past rather than planning for improvement in the future. When performance management processes operate efficiently, technology to support activities such as modeling and analytics can optimize outcomes and help align them to targeted goals and objectives. This might seem trivial or easily...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales, Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC)

CIOs Need to Make Information Management a Real Priority

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 August 2012

Our recent benchmark research on information management uncovered some startling facts about the level of technology adoption necessary for efficient information-centric organizations. Chief information officers (CIO) are responsible for the availability of information to their businesses in a consistent and timely basis, but in most organizations, information management is seen as just a...

Topics: Big Data, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, CIO, Customer & Contact Center, Data Management, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Data, IT

Product Information Management Is Hot for Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 02 August 2012

Ventana Research has just released our 2012 Value Index for Product Information Management (PIM), in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products. Our firm has been researching this software category for many years, and our latest benchmark research in product information management, coming out shortly, finds PIM software providing substantive benefits in new channels of...

Topics: Master Data Management, Sales, Sales Performance, SAP, Supply Chain Performance, Enterworks, Hybris, Stibo Systems, Webon, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Data Governance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), IBM, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Oracle, Heiler, Product Information Management, Riversand

WorkForce Software Focuses on Effective and Efficient Workforces

Posted by Mark Smith on 27 July 2012

Our research agenda for 2012 in human capital management outlined the importance of workforce management for all organizations. One provider, WorkForce Software, provides systems that support scheduling, time and attendance, leave and absence and fatigue management. As I noted in my last analysis on WorkForce Software, the company’s focus on the fatigue aspect of workforce management, especially...

Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Human Capital Management, SuccessFactors, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, HTML5, Time & Attendance, Workforce Management

Kognitio Brings Big Data Experience to Business Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 06 July 2012

Kognitio has been serving the analytics and data needs of organizations for more than 20 years with an in-memory analytics platform that meets many of the big-data needs of today’s organizations. Kognitio Analytical Platform provides a unique massively parallel processing (MPP) in-memory database that can rapidly load data and calculate analytics; it is available both in an analytical software...

Topics: Big Data, Data Warehousing, Social Media, alteryx, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Hortonworks, Information Management, Kognitio, Strata+Hadoop

Roambi Provides Digital Platform for Mobile Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 06 July 2012

The demand for business information on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets continues to increase, while the technology to support it has not. In our benchmark research on information applications, only 11 percent of organizations said they are very satisfied with their ability to provide such information, and their top two complaints with existing technologies are that they are too...

Topics: Mobile, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Digital Publishing, Roambi, Digital Technology

Total Compensation Is Hot in Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 29 June 2012

We have just released our 2012 Value Index for Total Compensation Management (TCM), in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products. Our firm has been researching this category for many years, and our latest benchmark research in total compensation management found some improvement among applications in a field where many organizations still use outdated applications to...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Peoplefluent, SuccessFactors, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Oracle, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Excentive, HR, SumTotal Systems, TCM, Value Index

The Mandate for Social Collaboration in Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 June 2012

It is hard to avoid seeing the impact of social media on our daily work, from marketing and sales to customer service. Consumers and customers can interact on the Internet to share their experiences and opinions often and easily, but internally we in business are still operating in the era of electronic mail and phone calls. Fortunately, that archaic state is changing. A new generation of...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, HCM, Human Capital Management, Social Collaboration, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, HR, Talent Management

Globoforce Engages Employees with Social Recognition

Posted by Mark Smith on 27 June 2012

The use of social collaboration to support human capital management is increasing as the need to engage talent becomes a higher priority in organizations. In particular, those that have a growing population of workers from the millennial generation see social media as a primary means of communication. Social collaboration is growing in acceptance – 58 percent of organizations now permit it,...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Globoforce, Human Capital Management, Social Collaboration, Social Recognition, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Get Sales Applications That Make You Smarter and More Engaged

Posted by Mark Smith on 27 June 2012

It’s clear that sales organizations need to be efficient, but many are unaware of critical applications they could deploy to establish sales excellence. In my recent analysis, “Sales Organizations Need a Swift Technology Kick”, I outlined why sales departments have to look beyond using sales force automation (SFA) and spreadsheets and examine dedicated applications for improving productivity and...

Topics: Sales, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Sales Forecasting, IT Research, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, SFA

Pitney Bowes is Transforming Customer Communications

Posted by Mark Smith on 25 June 2012

Pitney Bowes (PB) opened its annual technology summit (Twitter: #TechSummit12) with a review of its organizational assets and its rich history of engineering hardware and systems for physical and now digital delivery of communications. The multibillion-dollar technology giant is transforming itself to address the digital needs of business for interaction with consumers. It also is working to...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Communications, Pitney Bowes, Portrait Software, Volly, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance

IBM Advances Predictive Analytics for Decision Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 June 2012

At its Business Analytics Analyst Summit (Twitter: #IBMBAS12) this week, IBM unveiled its new release of analytics software for decision management. Over the last 25 years decision support systems have transformed into decision management, in which analytics, rules and optimization methods help organizations use information to guide optimal outcomes. IBM has experience and technology in these...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM, Workforce Performance, Business Process Management, Decision Management

Hortonworks Leads a Fast and Growing Herd of Hadoop

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 June 2012

Hadoop, the big-data technology, has transformed businesses’ ability to cost-effectively store and process large volumes of data for analysis. Numerous companies have invested in supporting Hadoop, and some produce commercial versions of the open source technology. At last year’s Hadoop Summit Hortonworks had just started to establish itself as one of these providers. Now, at the 2012 Hadoop...

Topics: Big Data, Datameer, IT Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Hortonworks, Information Applications, Teradata Aster, Strata+Hadoop

Planview Helps Direct Business and IT Portfolios to Optimal Outcomes

Posted by Mark Smith on 20 June 2012

Business has been getting smarter about using technology for analyzing processes and optimizing outcomes, but still has much room for improvement when it comes to operational management. Traditional project management has advanced to encompass financial and operational planning, including prioritization toward goals and expected outcomes, creating the concept of portfolio management. In essence,...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Portfolio Management, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, CFO

Enterprise Revolution of Predictive Analytics with Version 6

Posted by Mark Smith on 15 June 2012

In our benchmark research in predictive analytics we’ve uncovered some intriguing tools for taking advantage of big data in the enterprise. Revolution Analytics, which we analyzed earlier this year, this month introduced its 6.0 release. Revolution extends the open source statistical programming language R with capabilities you would expect out of enterprise software. The company has grown...

Topics: Big Data, Linux, Predictive, Revolution, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Cloudera, Data Mining, Strata+Hadoop

Teradata Aster Standardizes Access to Hadoop with SQL-H

Posted by Mark Smith on 13 June 2012

Using Hadoop just got easier, thanks to Teradata’s introduction of SQL-H, a new query interface to analyze data from Hadoop. Most Hadoop access methods require preprocessing and staging of data from the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) using technologies such as MapReduce. These approaches require new skills and technologies, introducing more time and costs for users, which offset the...

Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Teradata, SQL-H, Business Analytics, CIO, Customer & Contact Center, Hortonworks, Information Applications, Information Management, Data, Strata+Hadoop

SuccessFactors Connects People with New Applications

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 June 2012

I attended SuccessConnect (Twitter: #sconnect), the annual SuccessFactors conference, to hear the latest from this talent management applications company. A lot has changed for the formerly independent company since it acquired Plateau less than a year ago and Jobs2Web. In turn, earlier this year SAP acquired SuccessFactors to expand its cloud computing business. Its recently outlined expansion...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, HCM, Human Capital Management, Performance, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, HR

New Generation of Big-Data Analytics with 1010data

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 June 2012

At first I thought 1010data just developed a faster data warehouse technology to be used with business intelligence tools. After a recent briefing, however, I learned that it provides much more than a data warehouse; the product is a large-scale analytics server that empowers business analysts to work on big data, conducting for, example, market basket analysis or correlations of customer and...

Topics: Big Data, Data Warehousing, Sales Performance, Predictive, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Management